1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for creating a temporary roadway or platform in wetlands, marshlands and other soggy and or wet areas. It is often necessary to have access to remote areas that are surrounded by wetlands or some other type of unstable or watery ground conditions. For example, the drilling of oil wells and/or the search for oil fields in remote locations often require the transport of heavy equipment across unstable terrain. Access roads and work platforms must be built. When construction of a permanent road or platform is not cost effective or, in the case of federally protected wetlands, not permitted, a means for providing temporary access to these remote locations that can be easily removed and does not destroy the terrain is desirable.
2. Description of Prior Art
Historically, this temporary access problem has been solved by using fill material to create a temporary road or work platform, stacking repeated layers of wooden mats on top of each other, building elevated road systems on pilings, positioning barges and/or using a pontoon supported road system. Each of these previous solutions is undesirable for one reason or another.
Fill material is often undesirable because it is impossible to remove 100% of the fill that was used for the road. Federal environmental regulations prohibit the use of fill in the wetlands for this reason. Wooden mats, while more easily removed than fill, are expensive to rent or purchase and suffer from the drawback that they are extremely heavy. The excessive weight increases set-up costs and compacts the soft wetlands soil. This soil compaction leaves a watery canal when the mats are removed and alters the habitat.
Depending on the project size, driving pilings deep into the ground to support work platforms and roadways can be prohibitively expensive and impractical. A further complication is that it is possible that one or more of the pilings could penetrate a fresh water aquifer and contaminate the water supply. Barges and tugs suffer from the drawback that they require at least 48 inches of water in order to avoid grounding. For this reason and for the reason that they are unwieldy in small areas, barges and tugs are unsuitable for working in the wetland environment.
Finally, pontoons can be crushed in shallow water and, because they are limited by length, they can not support a heavy concentrated load. Some of the cranes that are used in wetlands construction are approximately 400,000 pounds in weight.
A need, therefore, remains for a method and application that allows construction of a temporary road or platform in wetland or marshland areas that will support the weight of heavy construction equipment, yet will not damage the environment. It is preferable if this method is more cost effective than existing procedures.